The U.S. Army and Marine Corps awarded Oshkosh, AM General and Lockheed Martin 27-month contracts to compete in the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle competition  the last round before a winner is selected to build the Humvee replacement fleet.

Service officials surprised many by choosing AM General and Oshkosh over BAE Systems and General Dynamics bids considering BAE Systems and General Dynamics had taken part in the technology development phase of the program. AM General announced its independent bid from General Dynamics just days before bids were due to compete for the EMD phase.

The announcement was made official when it was post on FedBizOps​.gov, a government contracting website, Wednesday night. Many analysts and industry officials didnt expect the announcement until Friday.

The three winners will have 27 months to build 22 prototype trucks to be judged by the services. Army and Marine Corps leaders have stipulated the per vehicle truck price must fall under $250,000. Adjusting the price ceiling to under $250,000 was one of the major breakthroughs that kept the JLTV program alive when many thought it might be replaced by the Humvee Recapitalization program.

The Army plans to buy at least 50,000 vehicles and the Marine Corps plans to buy 5,000 more in one of the largest contracts available to defense companies as the Defense Department shrinks its modernization budget along with other planned spending cuts.

The three industry teams that entered the technology development phase of the competition included General Tactical Vehicles (General Dynamics and AM General); BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin; and Navistar and BAE Systems. Oshkosh announced its intentions to bid on the EMD phase of the contract months before the March deadline.

Oshkosh, AM General and Navistar made last minute independent bids after the Army and Marine Corps submitted a new set of requirements in hopes of reducing the price and keeping Congress from canceling the program. Oshkosh and AM Generals bids paid off.

AM General President and CEO Charles M. Hall highlighted the 300,000 operational test miles and demonstrated high reliability and maintainability of their offering, the Blast-Resistant Vehicle-Off Road. AM General is also the manufacturer who built the Humvee.

AM General is uniquely focused on meeting the needs of the U.S. armed forces and our team is prepared to move forward, Hall said in a statement.

Ahead of the award announcement, Oshkosh officials invited a group of military journalists down to Stafford, Va., near their offices to ride in their vehicle offering, the Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Many officials in the industry took notice of Oshkoshs confidence to host such an event before the Army and Marine Corps picked the winners.

This vehicle is designed to provide MRAP level protection in a vehicle that is less than half the weight of existing MRAPs, said John Bryant, vice president and general manager for Joint Marine Corps Programs at Oshkosh Defense.

Navistars bet to submit their Saratoga vehicle independent from BAE Systems didnt pay off in the same way as AM Generals. Leaders of the company hope the Saratoga will catch on in other countries.

We still feel strongly about the capabilities of our Saratoga JLTV vehicle, which is designed to be delivered to market quickly with less investment than traditional defense programs, and we believe it is appealing to nations facing uncertain futures and limited budgets, said Elissa Koc, a Navistar spokeswoman, in a statement.

and why in a time of shrinking budgets, fewer combat troops, and uncertain types of future wars, are we spending money on a new truck? sounds like more corrupt decision making from a corrupt pentagon. (as a former armor officer it pains me to see how low the perfume princes have sunk.)

If it protects our sons and husbands against an IED or grenade launcher, and lasts another 20 years, is it worth the investment?

it won’t. even an ABRAMS can be destroyed by an IED. there is always a tradeoff. the MERKAVA and ABRAMS were designed with crew survivabilty the number 1 priority and they are the best tanks in the world (maybe LEOPARD 2A6 is there too). if this isn’t a technological leap forward, the money can be better used on more troops and more training.

Vehicles like this have much shorter lifespans than your average tactical truck. The unarmored HMMWV had a great lifespan, but all the armor takes its toll on the frame, suspension, engine, and trannie.

Even if you overbuild these things, they’re going to be a maintenance NIGHTMARE. Might as well get a tank.

A modern, armored Humvee goes for around $150,000, so it isn’t that much of a leap. And in any case, the Humvee has been increasingly replaced in Afghanistan by mine-resistant vehicles like the various MRAPs, where the unit cost can exceed 1 million dollars.

If it protects our sons and husbands against an IED or grenade launcher, and lasts another 20 years, is it worth the investment? YOU BETCHA! Right Military families?

Absolutely not! Fighting wars is a dangerous business, and those of us who volunteered for the job knew what we were getting into when we joined. Of course it's good to do all we can within reason can to protect our troops - but within reason. There is no amount of money which can elminate all the risks of combat, but there most certainly is a level of overspending which will drag us down to the point of insolvency.

I don't believe our nation any longer has the guts to fight an all-out, sustained war of attrition. The small but interminable nature of our current conflicts has exhausted our strength and will to the point that Americans just don't have the stomach for the casualties that full-scale warfare would produce. So instead of focusing primarily upon weapons and tactics that will overwhelm and destroy our enemies in the shortest time possible, we have become obsessed with making it safer for our armed forces to occupy and police hostile territories in perpetuity. We have devolved to the point that most Americans now regard our soldiers more as pitiable victims rather than warriors, and pray more for safety than for victory.

Better helmets? Absolutely! Superior body armor? Of course! But paying $250,000 per truck is not only unreasonable - it is criminal! $250,000 multiplied by how many? That level of spending on the scale that our armed forces require is not sustainable, and is just more evidence that - like all other vultures - defense contractors are picking their share of flesh off of a dying corpse. This orgy of deficit spending will ultimately end in collapse.

It’s a trade-off. At a quarter-mil per copy the Pentagon won’t be able to buy enough of them to protect the infantry. So many troops will continue to ride in Humvees or other thin-skinned troop carriers. Those troops won’t be beneficiaries of that higher level of protection.

18
posted on 08/27/2012 3:46:47 PM PDT
by Tallguy
(It's all 'Fun and Games' until somebody loses an eye!)

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